Yang’s football gambling debt was at the center of the dispute that led to the deadly shooting.

Lloyd Running Bear, 29, was shot five times after confronting Yang in the restaurant over the debt.

At the time, the restaurant near 16th and Welton streets was full of patrons and employees.

Defense attorney Jud Lohnes argued that Yang, who is 5 feet 2 inches tall, was merely defending himself when he fired the gun because Running Bear was choking him.

Running Bear was 100 pounds heavier and a foot taller than Yang. An autopsy found methamphetamine, cocaine and a high level of alcohol in his blood, Lohnes said.

Yang owed thousands of dollars in gambling debts to an acquaintance of Running Bear and another man who went with him to the restaurant to collect a $500 weekly payment.

Prosecutors disputed the self-defense theory because Running Bear was shot twice in the back along with the three shots he had taken in the stomach.

A week before the shooting, prosecutors said, Running Bear and two other men visited Yang at the restaurant. Yang called 911 and threatened to shoot them if they returned.

Yang also has a 2009 domestic-violence conviction in Adams County.

Running Bear’s family and friends broke into tears after the verdict was read, saying they didn’t believe the jury’s decision was harsh enough.

Yang did not make a statement to Judge Edward Bronfin. His lawyers plan to appeal in part because a defense expert was unable to testify on Yang’s behalf after the attorneys learned at the last minute that the expert falsified his credentials.

Bronfin will sentence Yang at 1:30 p.m. April 8 in Denver District Court.

A first-degree murder conviction would have put Yang away for life.

A manslaughter conviction carries a range of punishment from two to six years in prison.

The University of Colorado leadership is grappling with how to address a nationwide nosedive in the favorability of higher education — particularly, among conservatives — as CU’s own representatives and decision-makers disagree on what’s behind the downturn.